DVRs, On-Demand, and Profit

Image from source, TVSquad

We have an outrageously high cable bill here at Chez Greenlee, what with the bundled cable TV/internet/digital phone package. We've also got the HDTV box and most of the premium channels, and the On-Demand roster of programs to choose from. But the best $10 we spend on the package is the DVR.  I hear that people love their Tivos, but the standard Cox Cable one works for me.  It's great to let a program record for a little while, joining in to watch about 20 minutes in. That way, you can zip right through the commercials.  But that little luxury might be coming to an end.

Why? There's no profit in it.  The more people view their favorite shows on DVR, the fewer commercials get watched.  With On-Demand and online video, there are usually a limited number of commercials that you can't skip. This isn't really too bad, since you don't have to slog through three minutes of product pitches when you watch that way. But if they disable fast-forwarding on DVRs, we'll have no choice. 

One thing that isn't mentioned in the excerpted article below is something they've already done, at least on our particular model of cable box.  They recently upgraded the software (the old version looked about as sophisticated as the old Prodigy online service), which changed the way the DVR works.  You can still fast-forward in multiple speeds, but stopping it where you want has become a whole lot trickier.  The faster you go, the more likely it is that you'll be catapulted backward about 30 seconds.  More often than not, you catch at least part of the last commercial before the show comes back.  Maybe they could charge a premium for that last slot?

[Excerpt]

'Hawaii Five-0' Premiere the Most DVR'd of All Time, But It Doesn't Really Matter



As DVR penetration continues to grow, at around 40 percent now, its presence gives one rookie show something to crow about. In a season where there are no breakout stars among the newcomers, it's something to note that the premiere of CBS's 'Hawaii Five-0' is now the most DVR'd show of all time, according to The Washington Post. . .

Read more at: TVSquad

The Technology Trap

When I was a little kid, I remember my mother turning on the TV right as an episode of one of my favorite shows, Bewitched, was ending. I recall saying that some day, we wouldn't just be able to pick a channel, we'd be able to pick what show we would watch. I remember looking at the channel selector knob, trying--and failing--to imagine what that knob would look like with different shows on it, instead of channel numbers.

None of us could have imagined what we now have at our fingertips, not just on our TVs, but on our computers; even our phones. My highly indexed trivia stores in my brain are now completely useless with Wikipedia, IMDB, Google and Bing. But thanks to DVD, Blu-ray, DVR, Hulu and other web resources, my 5-year-old self gets to experience his wish as he never dreamed. . .albeit in a 43-year-old body. And he also gets to pay a ridiculously high cable/DVR/broadband/digital phone bill every month.

I'm experiencing a bit of a problem now, with all of this technology. With a four-day weekend within my grasp, but with The Other Half away for most of it, I had to plan around my tech obsessions. I had to make a checklist--actually done on an actual pad with a pen, imagine that!--to make sure I got something done each day. And I've actually done so. But I need to get out of the house and run some errands, and what am I doing? Sitting here blogging, because the idea for this post came into my head while I was showering.

It used to be that I'd sit at my desk on my computer, with the TV on for noise. A great show could pull me away from the computer, but usually, it was just to keep me company. Now, I'm finding myself doing the reverse. While watching TV, I'll actually pull the laptop over, and check on who is in the program, what reviews there are of it online, OOH, I got mail! And look, Tracy just said something on Facebook! Oh, wait, I have no idea what just happened on the show I'm watching!

Fortunately, the best $10 of my extremely expensive cable package is the DVR which lets you back up live TV. Awesome. But I figure, between DVDs, DVR, Blogger, Facebook, AOL and plain old television, I'm spending 80% of my awake time at home in front of some sort of screen. And I do approximately the same thing at work. It doesn't help that the DVDs have "extras," and that the internet has time-suckers like those mentioned above, and things like FailBlog.org and Engrish.com that suck me in for hours at a time. Sigh.

Well, I know what I've got to do. I've got to post this little nugget, close the program, close the lid on the computer, and get out in the world! Lucky for me, I got up early and all of this techno time sucking happened by 1:00 pm! There's still some day left, after all.